Last updated 2026-07-09
TL;DR
OSHA Form 301 is the incident report you must complete within 7 calendar days of any recordable work-related injury or illness under 29 CFR 1904.29. It captures the employee, the treating provider, and the incident itself. Employers with 10 or more workers in most industries keep completed forms for 5 years. Form 301 works alongside the Form 300 log and the Form 300A summary.
What is OSHA Form 301?
OSHA Form 301 is the Injury and Illness Incident Report. It is the case file for a single recordable incident, and it is one of three forms in OSHA's injury and illness recordkeeping system, alongside the Form 300 log and the Form 300A annual summary [1]. Form 300 is a running list of every recordable case in a year. Form 301 is the story behind one line on that list.
The form asks about three things: the employee (name, address, date of hire, gender), the treating healthcare provider, and the incident itself (what the worker was doing, what happened, the injury or illness, and the body part affected). It runs two pages and about 30 questions.
Every recordable case gets its own Form 301. Five injuries in a month means five forms. Each one ties back to a case number on the Form 300 log.
Here is a nuance worth knowing. OSHA lets you substitute an equivalent form for the official 301 as long as the substitute carries all the same information. Many workers' compensation first-report-of-injury forms qualify. Lay your state's comp form next to the 301 fields before you assume it counts [2].
Who has to complete OSHA Form 301?
The requirement covers employers under OSHA's recordkeeping rule at 29 CFR Part 1904. That means private-sector employers with 10 or more employees in most industries, with two big carve-outs.
First, partially exempt industries. OSHA lists low-hazard sectors (certain retail, finance, and real estate businesses) that skip routine recordkeeping. Employers there do not complete Form 301 unless OSHA or the Bureau of Labor Statistics specifically asks [1].
Second, any employer with fewer than 10 employees at all times during the previous calendar year is exempt from routine recordkeeping, whatever the industry [1].
If you are covered, the 7-calendar-day clock starts the day you learn about the injury, not the day it happened. An employee who reports a repetitive-stress injury on Friday starts a deadline that lands the following Thursday. Miss that window and the miss is itself a recordkeeping violation.
About half the country runs under state plans that administer their own OSHA programs, and those plans must be at least as effective as federal OSHA. Most adopt the federal forms directly. A few have minor tweaks. Check your state's plan site if you are in California (Cal/OSHA), Michigan (MIOSHA), or another state-plan state [3].
What counts as a recordable injury or illness that triggers Form 301?
You complete a Form 301 only when a case is "recordable" under 29 CFR 1904.7. A case is recordable if it is work-related and results in death, days away from work, restricted work or job transfer, medical treatment beyond first aid, loss of consciousness, or a significant injury or illness diagnosed by a healthcare professional [1]. Most workplace incidents never rise to this level.
First aid cases get no Form 301. OSHA defines first aid in 29 CFR 1904.7 as a fixed list of treatments: over-the-counter medications at nonprescription strength, bandaging, splinting, and a handful of others. If the care stays on that list, the case is first aid and you skip the form.
The hard calls involve prescriptions and therapy. A prescription-strength dose of ibuprofen for a sprain makes the case recordable. So does a course of physical therapy or chiropractic treatment, because both count as medical treatment beyond first aid. When you are unsure, the OSHA recordkeeping standard and its preamble walk through the reasoning.
Work-relatedness matters too. The injury has to be caused or contributed to by conditions or events at work. A pre-existing condition becomes recordable only if work activity aggravated it [1]. Commuting injuries usually are not recordable. Parking-lot injuries usually are.
How do you fill out OSHA Form 301 correctly?
Download the current version from OSHA's website. The form is free [2]. Print it or complete it on a computer. OSHA does not require a specific layout beyond the content fields.
Section 1 asks about the employee: full name, street address, date of birth, date of hire, and gender. No Social Security Number goes on the form itself.
Section 2 asks about the treating physician or healthcare professional: name and facility, street address, and whether the worker went to an emergency room or stayed overnight in a hospital. That last question matters because hospitalizations and amputations trigger a separate 24-hour report to OSHA, which is a phone call or online submission, not a form [8].
Section 3 covers the incident. This is where supervisors shortchange the form with lines like "back injury" or "slip and fall." Write what the employee was doing ("lifting a 60-pound box from a floor-level shelf onto a conveyor"), what happened ("felt a sharp pain in lower back"), the injury ("lumbar strain"), and the body part ("lower back"). Specific descriptions protect you in a dispute and help you spot patterns across your log.
Use the date the injury happened, not the date it was reported. If the time is unknown, write your best estimate and mark it approximate.
Sign and date the form when you finish it. Keep it on file at the establishment where the injury happened. Retention runs 5 years, measured from the end of the calendar year the case was recorded [1].
One confidentiality point. Strip the employee's name from copies you post or hand to workers who ask to see the log. The full Form 301, name included, still has to reach employees, former employees, and their representatives who request it, by the end of the next business day [1].
What is the difference between Form 300, Form 300A, and Form 301?
The three forms do different jobs and depend on each other. Form 300 counts your cases. Form 301 tells the story of each one. Form 300A is the yearly summary your employees see.
| Form | Name | What it is | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| 300 | Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses | Running list, one line per case | Entry within 7 calendar days of learning of a recordable case |
| 300A | Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses | Annual totals, posted for employees | Posted Feb 1 through Apr 30 each year |
| 301 | Injury and Illness Incident Report | Full narrative for each individual case | Completed within 7 calendar days of learning of a recordable case |
When OSHA inspects your records, expect them to pull all three. A Form 300 entry with no matching Form 301 is a recordkeeping violation. A Form 301 that is incomplete or missing a required field is also a violation, even if the 300 entry looks clean [4].
Some employers mix up Form 301 with OSHA's severe injury reporting rule. Those are different animals. Severe injuries (hospitalizations, amputations, eye losses) require a phone or online report straight to OSHA within 24 hours, regardless of company size. Form 301 is records retention, not that notification [8].
How long do you have to complete Form 301?
Seven calendar days. The clock starts the moment you, as the employer, learn a recordable case happened, not when the injury occurred and not when the employee tells HR. A supervisor learns of it Monday morning, and day seven is Sunday. Weekends count [1].
The safest habit is to finish the form the same day you learn of the injury. Memories fade fast. The employee may be out for a week. Doing it right away also gives you better information.
For illnesses with gradual onset, like repetitive stress injuries or occupational hearing loss, the 7-day clock starts when you first know or have reason to know the condition is work-related and recordable. That is often the date a provider gives the diagnosis.
OSHA can cite you for a late Form 301. Under the agency's recordkeeping enforcement, other-than-serious recordkeeping violations can draw penalties up to $16,131 per violation as of 2024, and willful or repeated violations can reach $161,323 per violation [4].
Can you use a workers' comp first report of injury instead of Form 301?
Yes, with conditions. OSHA allows substitution under 29 CFR 1904.29(b)(4), which states: "If you use an equivalent form, the form must contain all the information asked for on Form 301." [1]
The snag is that workers' comp first-report forms vary by state, and not every one covers every field OSHA wants. Before you rely on your comp form as a 301 substitute, set the two side by side and check field by field. The common gaps are the employee's date of birth, the name of the physician's facility, and the specific body-part description.
If your comp form covers every field, use it and skip the separate 301. If it misses even one required field, either supplement it or complete a full 301. Plenty of employers staple both together, which is fine.
Substitution saves time, especially if your carrier already runs a clean first-report process. Just keep the substitute wherever you would keep the 301, for the same 5-year retention period.
Who can see Form 301, and do you have to share it?
Access rights under 29 CFR 1904.35 are specific. An employee, former employee, or their personal representative can ask for the Form 301 for their own case, and you must hand it over by the end of the next business day [1]. No fee. No stalling.
An authorized employee representative, a union for example, can request Form 301 copies for the cases it represents. You have 7 calendar days to provide those, but you first black out any personally identifying information (name, address, date of birth) on forms for cases that do not belong to the requesting representative's own members [1].
OSHA compliance officers can review every record during an inspection. They do not need advance notice to look at recordkeeping documents in a formal inspection.
Courts can also compel production. Form 301 is a business record, and it shows up in litigation.
Do not post Form 301 publicly. The Form 300A summary, without individual names, is the document that goes on the wall. Keep the 301 in a secure file, not on a shared drive or a bulletin board.
Does OSHA Form 301 have to be submitted electronically?
It depends on your establishment size and your industry's hazard level. Most small employers keep the 301 on file and never submit it. Larger employers in high-hazard industries submit the data every year.
OSHA's Injury Tracking Application (ITA) is the electronic portal. Under 29 CFR 1904.41, updated by the 2023 final rule, establishments with 250 or more employees in industries required to keep records must submit their Form 300A and Form 300 log data every year. Establishments with 20 to 249 employees in designated high-hazard industries submit Form 300A summary data [5].
Form 301 is the newer piece. Under the 2023 final rule that took effect January 1, 2024, establishments with 100 or more employees in designated high-hazard industries must also submit Form 301 case-level data (the data fields, not the actual form) to the ITA each year. The deadline is March 2 [5].
So if you have 100 or more employees and your industry sits on OSHA's high-hazard list (manufacturing, construction, hospitals, food processing, and many others), you submit Form 301 data electronically every year. OSHA publishes that data publicly after stripping identifying information.
Under 100 employees or in a lower-hazard industry? You keep Form 301 on file at your establishment and submit nothing unless OSHA asks during an inspection or a data collection survey.
What are the penalties for not completing Form 301?
OSHA takes recordkeeping violations seriously. Missing, incomplete, or falsified Form 301s are all citable.
As of 2024, OSHA penalty amounts are [4]:
- Other-than-serious violations: up to $16,131 per violation
- Serious violations: up to $16,131 per violation
- Willful or repeated violations: up to $161,323 per violation
These adjust every year for inflation under the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act.
A single inspection can produce many violations. An employer with 15 recordable cases and no Form 301 for any of them could face 15 separate citations.
The bigger risk is under-recording. Deliberately skipping a case, or labeling a recordable case first-aid-only to dodge paperwork, is a willful violation and lands in the higher penalty tier. OSHA investigators are trained to catch under-recording by comparing medical records, workers' comp claims, and the Form 300 log.
Penalties are not the whole cost. Your recordable injury rate feeds insurance premiums, government contract bids (through Experience Modification Rate calculations), and general contractor prequalification. Clean records work in your favor.
Building or auditing your written safety program? The SafetyFolio safety program generator can structure your recordkeeping procedures alongside your other required programs so the 301 process has a home.
How does Form 301 connect to OSHA's overall recordkeeping rule?
Form 301 lives inside 29 CFR Part 1904, OSHA's standard for recording and reporting occupational injuries and illnesses. The subpart that governs the forms is Subpart C, and the specific section is 29 CFR 1904.29 [1].
Here is the bigger picture. OSHA's recordkeeping system exists to produce national data on workplace injuries. The Bureau of Labor Statistics uses that data for the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII), which turns out the annual national and industry injury rates you see quoted in safety literature [6]. When BLS reports "3.1 cases per 100 full-time workers" for an industry, that number traces back to Form 300 logs like yours.
Form 301 is also a management tool, even if OSHA did not build it as one. Read 20 of them from a single year and the patterns jump out: same workstation, same shift, same task, same object. That reading is the start of any real injury prevention effort.
Understanding what OSHA is and how it operates puts the recordkeeping rule in context. This is more than paperwork. The data drives enforcement targeting, rulemaking, and national safety policy.
If you want your safety program to hold up under scrutiny, put your managers through OSHA 30 training. Supervisors who understand the recording criteria make better calls in the field about whether and how to record a case.
What common mistakes do employers make on Form 301?
A handful of errors show up over and over in OSHA inspections and internal audits.
Vague injury descriptions top the list. "Shoulder injury" tells you nothing. "Employee was reaching overhead to retrieve a part from a shelf above shoulder height and felt a pop in the right shoulder, diagnosed as a rotator cuff tear" tells you what to fix. Inspectors also read vague entries as a sign the employer never really investigated.
Wrong date. The form asks for the date of injury or onset of illness, not the report date or the date you completed the form. For a gradual-onset illness these can sit weeks apart.
Blank fields. Even the ones that feel optional, like time of the event, should be filled. Write "unknown" if you truly do not know. A blank looks like a form nobody finished.
Skipping the form entirely. Employers talk themselves into calling a case first-aid-only when it is not, or they enter the case on the 300 log and forget the 301. A good internal rule ties the two together: no Form 300 entry without a Form 301 in the file.
Tossing the form too soon. The 5-year retention runs from the end of the calendar year the case occurred. A 2022 case has to be kept through the end of 2027 [1].
Wrong location. Form 301 stays at the physical establishment where the injury happened. Multiple sites means each site keeps its own records.
Frequently asked questions
Is OSHA Form 301 the same as a first report of injury?
They carry similar information but are different documents. A first report of injury is a workers' compensation form required by your state's comp system. Form 301 is a federal recordkeeping requirement. OSHA lets you use a comp first-report form in place of Form 301, but only if it contains every field the 301 asks for. Many state forms qualify. Some do not. Check them side by side before substituting.
Do I need to complete Form 301 for a near-miss incident?
No. Form 301 is only for recordable injuries and illnesses, meaning cases with actual harm (days away from work, medical treatment beyond first aid, restricted duty, and the like). A near-miss with no injury is not recordable. You should still log near-misses through your own internal system, since they are useful leading indicators. OSHA requires no specific form for near-misses.
What if an employee refuses to provide information for Form 301?
Complete the form with what you have. OSHA does not require the employee to sign it or help you finish it. Use the supervisor's description, the workers' comp claim, or medical records the employee authorized you to receive. Document that you tried to gather the missing details. A field left blank because an employee would not cooperate is different from a field left blank out of neglect.
How do I handle Form 301 for a contractor injured on my site?
The employer who controls the worker's day-to-day tasks records the injury, not the host employer. If a subcontractor's employee gets hurt on your site, the subcontractor completes the Form 301 and logs the case on its own Form 300. You do not record it unless you supervised the work. This trips up a lot of employers. OSHA's rule at 29 CFR 1904.31 covers exactly this situation [9].
Can OSHA Form 301 be kept electronically instead of on paper?
Yes. OSHA allows electronic recordkeeping as long as the records stay as accurate and accessible as paper. You have to produce copies promptly when an inspector or an employee asks. No specific software is approved; any format that preserves every required field and can be pulled up fast works. Back up your files. Losing them to a server crash does not excuse you from the retention requirement.
What is the retention period for OSHA Form 301?
Five years from the end of the calendar year in which the case occurred. A case from March 15, 2022 has to be kept through December 31, 2027. During that window you must make the records available to current and former employees, their representatives, and OSHA on request. After 5 years you are not required to keep them, though business or legal reasons may push you to hold on longer.
Are there industries exempt from completing OSHA Form 301?
Yes. Two groups are partially exempt from routine recordkeeping: employers with fewer than 10 employees at all times during the prior calendar year, and employers in low-hazard industries on OSHA's partially exempt list (certain retail, finance, insurance, real estate, and service sectors). Exempt employers do not complete Form 301 under normal conditions, but OSHA or BLS can still require records from any employer through a specific written notice.
Does the 7-day deadline for Form 301 include weekends and holidays?
Yes. The 7-day deadline in 29 CFR 1904.29 is calendar days, not business days. Weekends and federal holidays count. Learn of a recordable case on Friday and day 7 is the following Thursday. The practical takeaway is to complete the form close to the injury date instead of waiting until the deadline, especially going into a holiday weekend.
What is OSHA's Injury Tracking Application and do I need to submit Form 301 data there?
The Injury Tracking Application (ITA) is OSHA's electronic portal for recordkeeping data. Under the 2023 final rule effective January 1, 2024, establishments with 100 or more employees in designated high-hazard industries must submit Form 301 case-level data every year by March 2. Smaller establishments or those in lower-hazard industries submit only Form 300A summary data, not Form 301 data. Check OSHA's ITA site to confirm your establishment's requirements [5].
Can I be cited for an OSHA Form 301 violation more than 6 months after the fact?
OSHA's statute of limitations for issuing a citation is 6 months from when the violation occurred. But for a continuing violation, like a record that stays missing or incomplete, courts have sometimes let OSHA treat each day the record remains bad as a new violation. In practice, OSHA cites recordkeeping problems it finds during an inspection regardless of when the incident happened, within the 5-year retention window. This is contested legal ground, so consult an attorney if you get a citation.
What information do I write in the injury description box on Form 301?
Be specific. Write what the employee was doing (the task), what happened (the event), the injury or illness (the medical condition), and the body part affected. Example: "Employee was manually lifting a full barrel from floor level onto a drum rack, felt immediate lower back pain, diagnosed with lumbar strain, affecting the lower back." Vague entries like 'hurt back at work' raise red flags during inspections and give you nothing to prevent the next one.
Is Form 301 required for self-employed individuals?
No. OSHA's recordkeeping requirements in 29 CFR Part 1904 apply to employers with employees. A self-employed person with no employees is not covered by OSHA in most circumstances. Hire even one employee (an actual employee, not a contractor) and you become a covered employer, and the recordkeeping requirements may apply, subject to the small-employer and industry exemptions.
How is Form 301 used during an OSHA inspection?
Compliance officers routinely request Form 300 logs, Form 300A summaries, and Form 301s. They cross-reference the three to check consistency, hunt for under-recording, and spot injury patterns that point to unfixed hazards. A mismatch, like a Form 300 entry with no matching Form 301, is a citation on its own. They may also compare your records against workers' comp claims and medical records when they suspect under-recording.
Sources
- OSHA, 29 CFR Part 1904 Recordkeeping Rule (full standard text): 7-day completion deadline, 5-year retention, recordable case definitions, employee access rights, first aid exemption, and substitute form allowance under 29 CFR 1904.29
- OSHA, Recordkeeping Forms page (official Form 301 download): Official OSHA Form 301 Injury and Illness Incident Report is available free from OSHA
- OSHA, State Plans page: About half of U.S. states have OSHA-approved state plans that must maintain recordkeeping requirements at least as effective as federal OSHA
- OSHA, Penalties page: OSHA civil penalties as of 2024: up to $16,131 per other-than-serious and serious violation, up to $161,323 per willful or repeated violation
- OSHA, Injury Reporting and 2023 Electronic Recordkeeping Final Rule: Under the 2023 final rule, establishments with 100+ employees in high-hazard industries must submit Form 301 case-level data to the ITA by March 2 annually, effective January 1, 2024
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities program (Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses): BLS uses employer Form 300 log data to produce national and industry-level occupational injury and illness rate statistics
- OSHA, Report a Fatality or Severe Injury page (24-hour notification requirement): Hospitalizations and amputations require a separate 24-hour telephone or online report to OSHA, distinct from the Form 301 recordkeeping obligation
- OSHA, 29 CFR 1904.31 (recording criteria for employees of temporary staffing agencies and contractors): The employer who supervises the day-to-day work of a temporary or contract employee records that employee's injuries on its own Form 300